Summary: Veena Mazumdar was born in 1927 and educated at Calcutta, Benaras, and Oxford. She is an Honours Graduate and D.Phil from Oxford University. In her professional career she has been a teacher of Political Science at the Universities of Patna and Berhampur, an Officer in the UGC Secretariat and a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Simla. She was Member Secretary, Committee on the Status of Women in India, and later Director, Programme of Women's Studies, Indian Council of Social Science Research for five years (1975-80). She was Founder-Director of the Centre for Women's Development Studies, New Delhi from 1980 to 1991, and thereafter was Senior Fellow at CWDS and JP Naik National Fellow, ICSSR, for two years. She is one of the pioneers in Women's Studies in India and a leading figure of the women's movement. Since 1996 she has been the Chairperson, Centre for Women's Development Studies, New Delhi.

Aloo Dastoor
Aloo Dastoor
Equality
Equality
Hindu women
Hindu women
In the second part of her interview, Vina Mazumdar talks about the changing definitions of Indian feminism, how the older generation of women activists in India have no qualms being terms feminists now. She talks about all the traditional roles of womanhood she fulfilled, the difference between subordination of women in different generations. She talks about her personal experience with her family and her father, and how they adopted the vision of new and liberal India without discriminating between men and women. She talks about the arrival of women's studies and women's movements in India.
Indian
Indian
New Delhi, India
New Delhi, India
Shakuntala
Shakuntala
Usha Mehta
Usha Mehta
Vina Mazumdar
Vina Mazumdar
country
country
edit
edit
equality
equality
father
father
fear
fear
feminism
feminism
feminist
feminist
freedom
freedom
grassroots
grassroots
heritage
heritage
imagination
imagination
law
law
memories
memories
message
message
mother
mother
movement
movement
political
political
privileges
privileges
responsibility
responsibility
rights
rights
society
society
subordination
subordination
symbol
symbol
teacher
teacher
western
western
women
women
women's movement
women's movement
women's studies
women's studies
New Delhi, India

VM - Yes, lot of people had this insistence.. "I'm not a feminist." You will find most of them belong to the earlier generation, I mean, my generation. As I said, Aloo Dastoor, Usha Mehta....first and foremost, they saw themselves as members of the freedom generation, they had been part of the freedom movement. And they had accepted..uh...taken constitutional equality in their stride. Like me they had never thought of themselves as discriminated against. So, feminism was associated with people who felt themselves to be discriminated against, you see. (takes a puff) As weak..people. So that's why...there used to be this kind of objection to being..dubbed a feminist.

VM - I don't think if you were to go ask Aloo today, she would raise that objection. Usha behen..stopped taking objection to being called a feminist. Mrinal gave up all objections to being called a feminist...Sushila Gopalan gave up all objections to being called a feminist. And..uh..the...(takes another puff) I also..let me see..the last, one of the last...in 1976 I had asked Romila Thapar, "How about contributing to women's history?" and she said she didn't believe in women's history. So recently I read her book called Shakuntala, and I wrote her saying "However belated my thanks, because this is what I have always believed to be women's history." And she's just written a very nice letter, to me. "You don't know that I am under attack from Sanskritists and other literary pundits..who are calling me too western a feminist. So there you were." (laughs) It's..it's Shakuntala...then..they...that's what uh...so you know certain terms acquire certain political connotations at different points of time.

Q - So I mean, I think maybe for your generation and maybe a little bit later the notion that feminism was a western import was quite strong. But for today's generation which loves everything western...that can't possibly be the reason for rejecting feminism.
VM - I think the...uhh...it is an important facet of identity in the Indian political context. That's why, we make a distinction between the Indian women's movement...we ARE still...uh...particularly I suppose the... last...decade, in many ways has revived memories of the pre-independence period feelings of humiliation in many of my generation. And perhaps we have become more aggressively Indian. I thoroughly enjoyed..uh..confronting the minister for human resource development, saying..if the government loses its institutional memory, it does not speak very highly of the health of governance in this country. Smrithi Brhankshat, Buddhi Na sho, Buddhi na Shaat, Pranga Shuddhi. So...agar mauka mile, I can also..use some masala from the (laughs) Indian traditions of..why not?

VM - Secondly, historically I think, Indian women have resisted their subordination, they have a MUCH longer history..Shakuntala..the book itself is a (laughs) testimony..of that. After all, Shakuntala was not created from any known Indian sources. It's the outcome of the Indian imagination..whoever might have been responsible. (CU of VM's gesturing right hand, now tending cigarette) But the gap between the original Mahabharata Shakuntala and the...let us assume that Shakuntala is a literary product. There is Mahabharata's Shakuntala and there's Kalidasa's Shakuntala. Between the two lie centuries of evolving subordination of women. That's the (laughs)..so..if..Romila can demonstrate on the basis of unquestionable scholarship that the subordination is an advancing process, not a retreating one. THAT is the Indian message of women's movement. Subordination of women is an ADVANCING process, not a retreating one. That's the MAJOR difference..

Q - You spoke a bit ,what you said that you fulfilled your traditional roles. Uh..but to some extent, the fulfilling of traditional roles for a lot of women..it also the very..instrument of their subordination..isn't it?
VM - Well I don't see it that way. You see. I don't see it that way..not as long as one does not accept..a subordinate position..in playing those roles. I think back to my..mother...I have persuaded many women, particularly in the women's studies group to draw on their own memories..from within their own families, of women in previous generations..and at the end of the exercise all of them sit up and say, "Oh my God! (gesturing) I thought..."

Aparana Vausse, the historian..it took me years to persuade her, to do some work on her own grandmother. Once she started dipping into the family archives, she discovered much more. She came and told me, "Not my grandmother. An earlier generation, they were much more stronger, and much more rebellious." I said, "Well, write about them. " By the time she collected her material, she came and said, "Sorry, ulta cheez hai.Ulta ho raha hai. WE are MORE subordinated!" I said, "Okay, well, chalo. Now you have graduated." (laughs). So..things begin to look..different.

Q - Can you tell me the story of when you came back from Oxford, and you were scared to ask your father...
VM - Aaah! Yes..the..rule of law. I was frightened that he was going to say no to my applying for the job. But he just looked at me and said, "But that was understood." When I looked rather blank, he laughed and said, "I knew this demand would come. So I was prepared. But something else has happened. During the years that.you were away, the country has adopted a new constitution. Which tells me that I can not distinguish or discriminate between you and your brothers. So whatever I have held as my responsibility in the case of your brothers, that my responsibility was to equip them, after that they must be capable of taking all their decisions, for the rest of their life. The same applies to you."

VM - When I still looked rather stunned, he said, "Why do you look so surprised. Don't you know that I'm a very law-abiding man, and that I believe in the rule of law, And when the law changes, I must change accordingly." The second message that I got from him..was..the SAME message the Makoda women revived. When I wanted, I couldn't decide whether to throw up my job after my first child was born. And my mother couldn't help. So she sent me to my father. So I went and told him what the dilemma was. My responsibilities as a mother. My responsibilities as a teacher. Was there a conflict between the two. So he looked at me, he said "Well, it's a good thing to hear you doing all this soul-searching. Makes me feel good that you take your responsibility seriously. But you're unable to balance between two sets of personal responsibilities. Introduce the third factor, and the equation will resolve itself." So I said, "Baba, what is the third factor?" He said "The third factor is this poor country. Which has invested a hell lot in your training. Do you have the right to WASTE that training?"

VM - Back, to responsibility. If you have privileges, you have responsibility. If you have rights, you have responsibilities. I think that's..and I've always regarded my father as a..very much a symbol of..this very typically Indian attitude, sense of whatever I get from society...I have responsibility to..give it back. Any privileges, opportunities, training..whatever, whatever. It has to be..ploughed back. So the third factor came to my rescue. I've never regretted the decision to continue..doing the (gesturing) balancing...worked. But uh..and it I think the..it also helps us..to become much stronger. Stress...and uh..time budgeting that you do (laughs).

Q - I guess the you know, the younger people who say they are not feminists or do not want to be involved in the women's movement have a great fear of losing all these affectionate relationships, of family, and loved ones, etc.
VM - Aaaah..I don't think they...understand! The amount of love and affection that the movement itself produces. It's incredible..it's absolutely incredible. Eh...if one wants to be afraid, you can always dream up..fears, you see. But..how can one go on through life, being afraid all the time. Conquering fears, and the involvement in these movements, has helped every one of us to shed our fears. Fears are very natural, and I think, more so for young people.

Q - When you see Indian women ...
VM - This phase, it's very difficult to put an exact date, but I always.... (gesturing) as students of history, we look for a fixed time, when something ANNOUNCES it's arrival. I would say that...for India, the ARRIVAL of the women's movement, as a political movement, came with the Mathura...the agitation over the Mathura case. The case actually took place earlier. And that's why to me the women's studies and the women's movement are what I call Siamese twins..because..they..anti-Mathura judgement agitation that spread across the country in the early 80s, would NOT have been possible, if those four law teachers, had not read out that judgement of the Supreme Court, and written that open letter to the Chief Justice, criticizing the Supreme's Court's position.

VM - And I think, as a history student, I have tried to preserve these..sort of. So I would say certainly the first...the beginning, I think is from the anti-emergency upsurge, and the little contribution that the ICSSR sponsored women's studies program made to that, so that some amount of information was available by the time the emergency was lifted, to at least begin a debate. But uh..the real HERALDING of the arrival that the movement is there..was with the..anti Mathura judgement agitation. These are..basically important for preserving the history of the movement. But otherwise, movements have long roots. They take time. They take time to mature. They take time to expand. And yes of course, there are ups and downs, swings..all these come. So there are lull periods and there are...But, the grassroots expansion of the base of the movement is...I think the biggest plus point. That's, and that's uh...there was a planning group last year..one of the 10th plan groups, on the empowerment of women. And part of that working group came up with this thesis that...the most remarkable fact that has to be taken note of is this mass upsurge of women from below.

Q - You know, in the Mathura case, when the judgement was passed and the letter was sent out there were some 50 people it was sent to, right?
VM - No, no no, not 50! Not 50. You see it was sent to many organizations. It was sent to civil rights groups, women's groups, ..all and sundry. Plus the press. And uh..only when the debate began, and the press began to pick it up, that in terms of organized protests.. to the best of my knowledge they..the first one was in Ahmedabad, where Ella Bhatt collected a whole lot of people. Including consumer rights activists..all of them came in. And there was a ....protest meeting. Not only that, they translated that letter into Gujarati. They also translated the resolution coming out of that meeting, and they distributed it, and the Gujarat media, the Gujarati language media spread it. I think in most of the..sort of..major landmarks, the contribution of the language press has been...the Indian language press has been much better.

Q - Do you think if that letter was sent out today, it would have generated the same response?
VM - Uh..(long pause)..difficult question to ask. Uh....the...maybe not so much in the big metropolis. It's very difficult to collect people, I mean I have just been trying to get some attention on the..girl child issue...and the dropping juvenile sex ratio.....I think the pace of urban life..as I..the disorganization..the pressures..these are become..even more. But ....I think ...maybe the tools of mobilization of today would be different. And uh......I AM rather out of date, my dear, well, you have to say, and it's not really right for me to make pronouncements for the future.

VM - But uh..I see the transformation going on, in the....MAYBE, it would be, it would be easier, not the metropolitan cities, but the relatively smaller towns. I am no expert in the..the impact that the..television has made on urban people's reactions, political or otherwise, because I don't watch TV. I find it impossible. And ...but I think in these smaller towns..and the...I certainly find the people get still excited about things in...I spend quite a..amount of time, going up and down to Jargram, in Medinipur, subdivisional headquarters, or Medinipur itself, the district headquarters. Yes, I think in those areas, that kind of message, coming from 4 distinguished law teachers could make an impact still. But always you need ..you need somebody local, to bring people together. And we've ALWAYS had this difficulty in Delhi..bringing people together. Delhi is not..great difference. Delhi is not...Delhi is still the imperial..the imperial headquarters, unlike, places like Calcutta or Mumbai. I think...I don't know, maybe...it's also, you know...

Q - Why did you set up CWDS?
VM - Oh! CWDS...basically to carry on...what that we had initiated with the women's studies program within the ICSSR. But uh..for which eh..more human resources, more autonomy, and a wider mandate than was possible within a sarkari agency. That was the way the advisory committee itself..there was a, they adopted a resolution, after reviewing the program in '79, and that resolution was drafted by (laughs) 3 veterans... Srinivas, Krishna Iyer, Ashok Mitra. Professor Ashok Mitra, not the economist..census, Mitra. All the three were members of that committee, and it was their view that..the time had come to...give these..uh..give a wider mandate, resources and autonomy..to this. That was the mission. And, personally I needed to get out, of the ICSSR...because the person who had provided the challenge, the encouragement and the opportunity, Naik Sahab, had left. And things were becoming difficult.

VM - So..if he had, did not provide the courage...he was the one who pushed me out saying, "Go register." First he made me draft a constitution, then he amended it, improved upon it and said now "go register." And I said, "Naik Sahab, ek paisa kabhi, provision me hi hai ya aap karte ho jab Go register", so you will find under his photograph (gesturing) in the director's room. My secretary Nandan has typed and pasted a line that everybody in the center is aware of - Naik Sahab's statement. "When one wants to work, it is..and fails, it is never from lack of resources, but lack of determination. Resources aaj nahi hai, kal aa jaiga."

VM - So it was a challenge, but I certainly thought that he was going to resolve the problem of resources, but he disappeared! Pushed off..upstairs, within one year after we started the center. But by that time, the gamble had been taken, and the baby had to be nursed. Yes it was..one had to do all kinds, learn all kinds of new things...BUT, no regrets! Tremendous fulfillment if you like, lots of tensions, lots of struggles, lots of things. And, I can now disappear. Chalo Bhai, ladki ko to badi to kar diya. Like my father I can say theek hai...seeing..seing the center through..the first 21 years of its existence. Now it should be a good tool. Managed the...rest of it's life.

Q - I just want to clarify one thing, which you talked about earlier, but I didn't fully understand it. You said that you are (something) towards equality before, it was a brain shattering experience. Why was it brain-shattering?
VM - Because we didn't know. We found or discovered our ignorance. We shattered our arrogance of learning. We discovered how false notions, we had nurtured, about our own civilization, about our own culture and about our own history. And uh....and I think the...because, Lotikadi and I had, both of us had taken a great pride in our profession, as teachers. So to discover that uh...much of what we had been teaching, was based on very poor knowledge.

Q - What did you discover about women in India, from that report?
VM - Well the..the one..simple example. We had all believed, including Lotikadi, that Hindu women, Hindu tradition...had never permitted widow remarriage, or divorce. And then to be confronted with actual hard statistics, from which Leela Dubey finally worked out a figure for me, saying less that 13 and a half % of the Hindu population in 1931 did not, traditionally permit divorce or widow remarriage, the rest did. So then, from that I worked out I said, "If I say, less than 10% of the population of the subcontinent had always traditionally permitted remarriage and divorce, will I be correct?" She said, "Yes, most definitely."

VM - So that's the kind of...so ALL that we had been brought up to believe about our own heritage....you have to see that, that's why I keep harping back to the heritage, the Indian heritage, because that to us was the most important thing in our bringing up - we were Indians. And the humiliation of colonial rule had to be combated by taking pride in our history of our long civilization, etc. And then to find that all that we knew about that was only partial, did not represent..so initially brain-shattering...because it...shattered our arrogance of learning. It shattered our arrogance as teachers, well informed, social scientists, and thirdly, there was that ENORMOUS burden of responsibility. I used to have nightmares hearing my mother's and father's..voices. This is why..this is why, we gave you all those opportunities to study? Itne seekha? Kya kaam pe lagaaya? What happened to your sense of responsibility? I have heard my mother's voice, in my dreams..what happened.

Q - Do you realize why that report for the first time (trails off, can't make it out) from a place of privilege?
VM - Oh ya! Very much so. Not only from a place of privilege, but as members of a very very VERY privileged minority. And, in having thought that, all we had to pay attention to, was our professional..personal professional responsibilities, and we didn't have any other. It wasn't that we were irresponsible people, but we thought that between our familial and professional responsibilities, we had behaved very responsibly. But it was that self-image which had gotten shattered. So..one had to reassemble the pieces and..uh..work towards a different kind of a whole..self perception.
It's a..it was a very painful...very painful period.

Q - I have my last question, it's very simple. You know, we always talk about equality. What is equality?
VM - Ah. Equality from the...one thing I've learnt from all third world women's perspective - the most important thing in equality is dignity. Dignity, and to that, now we add autonomy. So equality gets further qualified by dignity, autonomy. But that's why I said Number 1 is justice. The justice has been always there. The demand for justice. That was always there. Way way back in history. That uh...that....as you see these five principles have crystallized over the years. The EQUALITY remains basic. That's the basis of any kind of..any..rights discourse. And uh..in the Indian context, political movement, made, political necessity made,..the faith in human equality, essentially. Otherwise, you couldn't have an Indian nation. That's it. So democracy, was just not a preferred ideology. It was a political necessity.